How to choose the best applicant tracking system for your small business

The Hire Team

Published Jul 12, 2019

Hiring at a small business usually involves a collection of
spreadsheets, emails, and various siloed tools. As the business
grows — and with it, the need for new members on your team — this
haphazard process often doesn’t scale, causing stress for both the
hiring team and your candidates.

An applicant
tracking system (ATS) is a natural solution to this problem: It
consolidates and streamlines common hiring processes, saving you
precious time and energy. But finding the best applicant tracking
system for a small business often presents a big challenge. With so
many options on the market, it’s difficult to know which ATS would
be worth the investment, especially if your budget is already tight.

This short guide will direct you toward the right ATS for your
organization by helping you determine what kind of system you really
need, both now and in the future. We’ll also cover some of the most
popular features included in small business-friendly ATS’, so you
know what you should prioritize during your research.

What should a small business-friendly ATS offer?

HR professionals trying to find the best applicant tracking system
for their small business may quickly get frustrated by long lists of
potentially unnecessary features. If you’re in charge of talent
acquisition at a small business, you’re probably not looking for HR
software that offers everything but the kitchen sink — you’re
looking for software that makes your job easier.

There are three specific things that small businesses should seek
out in an ATS, all of which are mission-critical to streamlining the
hiring process — and crucial for supporting your recruiting efforts
long-term.

Time-savings: With a small business comes a small HR team —
sometimes a single person — juggling candidate data, interview
scheduling, and posting new job openings across different job
boards. Tracking your tasks between multiple tools is incredibly
time-consuming. With an ATS, all these steps are consolidated into a
single location, saving valuable time by reducing the need to
constantly switch between tools or tabs.

Inclusion of the whole team: It’s next to impossible for HR
professionals at small businesses to handle the entire recruiting
process themselves. You need to lean on hiring managers and company
leadership to conduct interviews, give feedback, and train new
employees. Applicant tracking systems make this collaboration easier
by providing “seats” for everyone, so no matter who’s involved,
they’re able to log in, add their input, and see the latest
candidate updates. HR professionals can then focus on the important
task of keeping the interview process on track — not uploading
information from interviewers, who don’t have the right permissions
to use a tool.

Integration with G Suite: Many small businesses use
G Suite calendar, email, and
spreadsheet tools since they’re a low-cost and team-friendly
alternative to other productivity suites. Thankfully, many ATS’
like Hire by Google integrate with
G Suite to save even more time and effort. For example, if you
schedule an interview in your ATS, it will automatically be added
to Google Calendar — there’s no need to add a calendar reservation
manually.

ATS’ like Hire by Google integrate with G Suite, allowing recruiters to easily create interview appointments directly from the ATS.

How can small businesses identify the ATS that best meets their needs?

Here’s a practical example: Your CEO may have a goal of doubling
your organization’s marketing team from five to ten individuals in
the next six months. But as the only member of HR, your time-to-hire is often six
weeks per person, which makes achieving this goal in the time
allotted almost impossible.

In this case, you’ll want to look for an applicant tracking system
that will help you speed up time-to-hire, which directly correlates
to your goal of hiring five new employees in six months. These
features might include:

Posting to multiple job boards at once: This feature allows new
vacancies to be posted to multiple job boards in a single click. In
addition to saving recruiters an immense amount of time, it also
allows job seekers to find your ads on a variety of career sites.

Source efficiency reporting: This report shows how far candidates
from specific sources make it in the interviewing process. You might
find that one specific job board is giving you more qualified
marketing candidates than another. You could then reduce the number
of job boards you’re posting to, saving time on interviews and money
on job postings.

Time-to-hire reporting: Finally, this report helps you understand
how long you’re taking to fill each new role. Time-to-hire may also
highlight issues with your workflow — such as a manager taking too
long to provide feedback after interviews — which you can then
address, armed with data. By identifying these bottlenecks, you can
speed up the recruitment process and improve the candidate
experience.

Source efficiency reporting shows the strength of your candidate sources by breaking it down to the interview stages they were able to reach, allowing you to prioritize your strongest sources

These three specific features directly support your goal of hiring
five new marketers in six months: You’ll be able to post jobs
faster, identify the best job boards for hiring qualified marketing
candidates, and find further opportunities for optimizing the hiring
process internally. These features reduce your time-to-hire, making
it possible to reach your goal.

Future-proofing your choice of ATS

Recruiters at small businesses may feel that the features they
really need in an ATS are vastly different from those preferred by
HR teams at larger organizations. But since your business may not be
small forever, and your hiring needs will change over time, it’s
best to look for an ATS that can scale as you grow. Look ahead when
choosing the best applicant tracking system for small businesses:

Flexible pricing structure — One of the first things to evaluate
in your choice of ATS is how it’s priced. Small business-friendly
applicant tracking systems adjust their pricing on a scaling basis,
typically by the number of users or “seats” available. This way, you
pay less if you are a smaller company, and the price only increases
when you add additional employees.

Candidate limits — Another point to consider is how your usage of
the software may change over time. Some ATS’ keep their prices low
by limiting candidate interactions or the number of applications
you’re able to receive. This may work for you right now, but small
businesses often find that it’s easy to exceed these limitations.
Prioritize ATS’ that don’t limit your activities, so you’re able to
use it as you need.

Unused features — Features that look like extras now may help you
meet your hiring goals in the future. While you may not benefit from
source efficiency reporting immediately, it can be a big help if
you’re trying to save money on hiring while attracting top talent.
And extra seats in the ATS may be useful in the future when you
decide to involve additional hiring managers in the interviewing
process.

While your recruiting software should absolutely help you meet your
current goals, think about how these goals might change over time,
especially as you add more members to your hiring team, interview
new types of candidates, and look for new opportunities to save time
or money. Imagining the future, or even discussing long-term hiring
plans with your leadership team, will give you an even better chance
of picking the ATS that’s best-suited to your organization.

Find the best ATS for your small business with these tips

Whether you employ ten people or are rapidly sprinting toward 100,
choosing the best applicant tracking system for your small business
doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Just remember to set your goals
before you start, and keep these priorities in mind as you search.

If you choose applicant tracking software with your hiring goals in
mind, you’ll be much more likely to find the ATS that will improve
your processes, make your candidates happier, and, ultimately,
contribute to hiring success, both now and in the long-term.

About Hire by Google

Hire is a recruiting app by Google that uses AI to make the hiring process faster and simpler. Because it is designed specifically for G Suite users, with Gmail, Google Calendar and other G Suite integrations, Hire streamlines administrative tasks so that your team can hire the best people, faster.